UK VICTIMS of terrorist atrocities today attacked civil liberties groups who appeared to claim that terror attacks were a price worth paying to protect individual privacy.

They accused some privacy campaigners of protecting terrorists and being 'isolated from the real world', after the comments were exposed in a major report on the snooping activities of Britain’s major spy agencies.

According to The Times, civil liberties groups namechecked in the report included Liberty, Big Brother Watch, Justice and Rights Watch UK.

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Isabella Sankey, director of policy for Liberty which campaigns on human rights issues, was asked for her views as members of Parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC) gathered data for the report.

She was reported to have said it was better to let ‘some things happen’ than to give UK security services ‘privacy-infringing measures’ designed to catch extremists plotting atrocities in the UK and overseas.

However the MPs and peers who compiled the report criticised some of the groups.

ISC members concluded: “We do not subscribe to the point of view that it is acceptable to let some terrorist attacks happen to uphold the individual right to privacy — nor do we believe that the vast majority of the British public would,”

However, the report revealed that a staggering half million warrants were granted to police, spy agencies and public bodies to gather communications data last year.

Privacy at a price: Isabella Sankey, director of policy for Liberty [Liberty]

It also showed that intelligence officials hold a massive amount of personal data containing millions of records on a wide range of people without statutory oversight.

But the ISC concluded MI6, MI5 and GCHQ should be allowed to continue intercept large volumes of data in the hunt for terrorist suspects and plots.

In an ‘evidence session’ last October Hazel Blears, a leading member of the ISC quizzed Isabella Sankey, the director of policy for Liberty.

Ms Blears said that she and other committee members had seen classified documents which demonstrated that such interception had exposed terrorist threats and plots.

However asked whether she would change her mind if there were evidence that showed bulk data collection had helped to prevent terrorist plots. Ms Sankey was quoted as saying: “No.”

She said such mass surveillance techniques were wrong in principle and added: ‘Some things might happen that could have been prevented if you took all of the most oppressive, restrictive and privacy-infringing measures. That is the price you pay to live in a free society.’

Graham Foulkes, whose 22-year-old son David, was killed in the 7/7 London bombings said: “The question that should be asked is, what’s the minimum interference in our freedom that gives us maximum protection?”

“Liberty is isolated from the real world. Because it is so lauded and courted by politicians, it has lost sense of what it’s all about.”

And Ray McClure, the uncle of Fusilier Lee Rigby, who was murdered by self-styled Islamic terrorists close to his barracks in Woolwich, south London, said that privacy groups were protecting terrorists and that their comments showed “how little they value life”.

The 7/7 London bombings in 2005 left 52 dead and more than 700 injured.

Last night Ms Sankey sidestepped the furore and accused the committee of attempting to put words in her mouth.

She said: "Instead of attempting to put words into the mouths of privacy campaigners, the ISC should have put its efforts into scrutinising the agencies.

'There is absolutely no excuse for terrorism and society must take all proportional steps to deal with it – but the real story here is that, despite their best efforts, the committee has been unable to present any evidence that mass surveillance of innocents’ calls and emails is saving any lives."